Page 57 - Gilbert & Me_Neat

This place is a nightmare. Every Friday and Monday evening, and twice on Sundays, a gang of
Baptists intent on letting the entire neighbourhood know of their purpose, congregates in that
building. There are approximately twenty five on a good day, including their hell-raising
preacher or pastor or whatever he’s called. They gather and begin their services with some
singing. To be honest, the lady who is the main vocalist isn’t half bad, the others need practice
and probably some long sessions with a voice coach, that’s true, but I could listen to the main
singer for a while.

I could, if it weren’t for the fact that they use this very loud public address system to blast their
singing out into the street and the neighbourhood beyond. They don’t need it – there’s only
twenty or so of them and the building is small. I know they don’t need it for the purposes they
claim, because the preacher or whatever never uses it when he’s yelling at them for being
relentless, prevailing sinners and unworthy of God’s love (along with the Government, Slave–
Owners, non Belizeans and generally everybody who isn’t a Baptist).

Many of my neighbours also find this annoying, but none has ever had the courage to complain
about it; religion has such a stranglehold on the lives of Belizeans that church leaders are allowed
to get away will a whole lot of stuff they wouldn’t do if they were real Christian. I once asked if
they could possibly turn it down a little, but they just got heavy-handed: a woman marched up to
me and told me to move out if I didn’t like the music, I said that wasn’t the issue, the loudness
was, but she just said “We’re praising God and will be as loud as we like!” and asked me to
leave the area. Even the police are fearful of them – when I complained, their response was
“They’re praising the Lord!”

Gallilee Baptist Church
(For the hard of Hearing)

SERVICES:
Loud and annoying

So, in actual fact, the ONLY good thing about this lockdown is that the Baptists have not been
able to meet, because they are not considered essential services. They also fell afoul of the no
gatherings of more than ten persons law, thus proving also that churches are NOT above the law
– man’s law that is. I have absolutely nothing against people wanting to meet and praise their
God(s), but I do expect those same people should respect everybody’s else’s rights to peace and
quiet without impacting on that of others.